Police swoop on protest shipANNE MATHER
February 21, 2009 12:00am
POLICE boarded the anti-whaling ship Steve Irwin when it arrived in Hobart last night and confiscated the ship's log book and video footage.
The film depicts some of the most dramatic whale-killing scenes ever seen, crew on the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society ship said.
After violent clashes with Japanese whalers in the Southern Ocean, the Steve Irwin was met by Australian Federal Police when it docked in Hobart about 5.30pm.
The police, who had search warrants, kept the crew on board as they searched cabins.
Steve Irwin captain Paul Watson said he was not told whether the police action stemmed from a complaint by the Australian Government or from the Japanese.
He said the Steve Irwin had never been searched before but he would welcome any charges that led to the crew facing a court.
"My position is that if they want to put me on trial for anything connected with this, then I am happy to do it," Capt Watson said.
"We are not there protesting, we are down there to stop a blatantly criminal activity, to stop whaling in a whale sanctuary.
"These actions have to go to court somewhere, so let's start it here."
Capt Watson said the conservationists had risked their lives during the campaign and were willing to risk their freedom.
He said the campaign had ended four days earlier than intended because it was clear the Japanese whalers were "out of control".
"They were frustrated, violent and attacking us," he said.
"I didn't want to get any of them killed or any of us killed."
The Australian Federal Police could not be contacted by the Mercury last night, though Tasmania Police confirmed federal officers met the ship.
The Steve Irwin was involved in its most extreme and dangerous clashes this season, culminating with the activist vessel crashing into the stern of the Yushin Maru 3 on February 7.
Capt Watson's crew said they were pelted with scrap metal, blasted with high-powered water canons and attacked with military-grade sonic weapons.
Tasmanian crew member Andrew Perry said the video footage was harrowing because the Japanese whalers had become more brazen by the end of the hunting season and for the first time slaughtered a whale in full view of the Steve Irwin.
Mr Perry said the footage, taken from the ship's helicopter, showed a whaler's explosive-tipped harpoon piercing a whale.
"The whale was then pulled alongside the (Japanese) boat and it was shot seven times with a shotgun."
He said the helicopter crew, filming for TV documentary show Animal Planet, then saw the whale thrashing and could hear it screaming.
Mr Perry said the slaughter took more than 20 minutes.
"It was an incredibly distressing thing to behold," he said.
"We have never been able to get footage like that before. It's going to be damning."
Mr Perry, of Hobart, said one of the reasons the Steve Irwin had concluded the campaign and returned to Hobart was because they had heard the Japanese had deployed a security vessel to track down the activists and seize the footage.
"We heard they had a commando boarding team whose objective was to find us and board us," he said.
Mr Perry, 39, drove one of the Steve Irwin's small runabouts during the campaign and was often in the frontline.
He said the 6.5m rigid inflatable boats were "like a mosquito pestering an elephant" when up against the 80m whaling boats.
He feared for his life when whalers tried to ram his small vessel and attack him with acoustic blasters and water canons.
"They threatened to crush us in between the Steve Irwin and their boat," he said. "It was a scary moment. There was no regard for our individual safety."
He said the Sea Shepherd crew never intended to harm any of the whalers but simply to pester them and act as a deterrent.
He said a tactic of the activists was to throw putrefied butter-bombs on to the whaling vessels, to taint the whale meat and render it worthless.
"We are always mindful to make sure we don't throw near any crew, we don't want to harm crew," he said.
Source:
http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2009/02/21/56935_todays-news.html------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday, January 03, 2009
HEADLINE: WHALERS' GROUP CALLS FOR PORT CLOSURES
The Japan Whaling Association (JWA) today called on the Australian and New Zealand governments to close their ports to a Dutch vessel committing criminal acts in the Antarctic.
Captain Paul Watson: Japan is once again attempting to use political and economic muscle to attempt to persuade our flag nation of the Netherlands to pull our flag and for Australian and New Zealand ports to be closed to Sea Shepherd ships.
Australian and New Zealand ports are presently closed to Japanese whaling vessels and not Sea Shepherd vessels for the very good reason that Japanese whaling activities are illegal in the Southern Ocean and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has not committed a single criminal offense. Sea Shepherd has not damaged any Japanese property, injured any Japanese whalers nor have we committed any violations. After five voyages of interference there has not been one criminal charge brought against Sea Shepherd nor has Sea Shepherd been sued. Calling us criminals has no legal foundation and merely is an attempt to distract from the fact that Japanese whalers are targeting endangered whales in an established international whale sanctuary in violation of a global moratorium on commercial whaling. This is in contempt of an Australian Federal Court ruling prohibiting whaling in the waters of the Australian Antarctic Territory.
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